Do Yourself a Favor and... Be a GREAT Teammate

Those people wearing the same uniform as you have a lot to do with your success as a runner.

To become the best high school miler in history, you'd need to be pretty focused on your training, your times...yourself, right? Well, maybe not. Consider Alan Webb, who last spring broke Jim Ryun's 36-year-old high school mile record with a world-class 3:53.43 performance.

"Alan was always very interested in how everybody on the team was doing," said Scott Raczko, Webb's Coach at South Lakes High School in Reston, Virginia. "He always seemed like he was more concerned about them than about himself." Webb, who now runs for the University of Michigan, demonstrated this trait at last year's Penn Relays. After anchoring South Lakes to victory in the high school 4 x 800 and distance medley relays, Webb praised his teammates at the press conference afterward.

The team: What a concept. But in a sport where so much of the drama is internal...I can do it, I know I can...or focused on the race winner...Here she comes, she's going to catch that girl in front of her...what do the people who wear the same uniform as you have to do with your success?Plenty. In those long, lonely miles you put in during the off-season, and in those knife-in-the-gut track repetitions and hill repeats that buckle your knees-at that moment in almost every race when you ask yourself how much you're willing to hurt to catch one more runner-you can draw strength and inspiration from your running mates. Whether it's cross-country or track, teammates make a huge difference.

"It's an individual sport," says Raczko, "but you're still out there every single day with your teammates, trying to make each other better."Those words certainly resonate with my own experience. Back in my senior year in high school in the early 1960s, I became increasingly distracted by happenings off the track-social events, a girlfriend, and so on. I was wrapping up high school life, and hard training seemed a low priority. My teammates must certainly have been disappointed in me and my times, which were well slower than expected.

That all changed when I went to college and joined the Stanford cross-country team. I found myself surrounded by runners with lofty goals and a willingness to work to achieve them. My times improved immediately. By my sophomore year, the upperclassmen made it clear that they expected team success at the national level, and I worked hard to be part of it. At the end of the season, we entered the NCAA meet as underdogs. Our coach, Marshall Clark, remembers how much group dynamics made a difference.

"That team didn't have a history of success," said Clark, now a high school coach in California, "but it was evident from the start of that season that the runners believed in one another and would succeed."In the final half-mile of that NCAA cross-country race, I remember suffering worse than I ever had in competition, but I was determined not to let my teammates down. I finished 40th, a quantum leap above where I had been running. Better yet, our team ended up second in the nation.

I was surrounded by a group of terrific runners that season, no doubt about it. But what exactly made them good teammates?A good teammate is someone willing to get outside of personal thoughts and emotions, a friend who tries to understand, appreciate, and encourage other members of the team.

"Basically, treating one's teammates with consideration and respect is vital to being a good teammate," said Britt Brewer, an associate professor of psychology and the men's cross-country coach at Springfield College in Massachusetts.There are subtle ways to communicate that you care: Cheer for your teammates, regardless of whether they're fast or slow, veteran or neophyte, varsity or JV. Or rally the spirits of someone who's had a bad performance. Also, encourage stragglers during tough workouts; jog back to "pick up" a runner who's behind during a long run. Share stories, listen to a teammate's problems and worries. This is the key-concern. Are you concerned about the people you train and race with? Can they sense it, or do they sense something else?